Savoury biscuits with black olives

Appetizer, Appetizers & Snacks, Snack

These traditional French savoury biscuits, crispy and buttery, combine aromatic Parmesan cheese with the briny bite of black olives. They capture the essence of Provençal flavors in a simple dough. Perfect as an appetizer, apéritif snack or with a glass of wine!

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 12 minutes mins

Total Time 32 minutes mins

Servings 30 biscuits

Ingredients 

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• 200 gr plain flour
• 100 gr unsalted butter cold and diced
• 100 gr Parmesan cheese
• 80 gr black olives pitted and roughly chopped
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp whole milk
• black pepper to taste

Equipment

1 mixing bowl

1 chopping board

1 knife

1 rolling pin

1 round cutter round, approx. 4 cm diameter

1 baking tray

baking mat

1 cooling rack

Instructions

1. Prepare the Dough

• In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and grated Parmesan cheese.

2. Incorporate the Butter

• Add the cold, cubed unsalted butter and rub it into the dry ingredients with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

3. Add Olives and Seasoning

• Stir in the roughly chopped black olives and a pinch of freshly ground black pepper.

4. Bind the Dough

• Add the egg yolks and milk, mixing gently with a fork or your hands until the dough forms a smooth ball. Avoid overworking.

5. Chill the Dough

• Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour to firm up.

6. Preheat the Oven

• Set the oven to 200°C (fan/gas mark 6).

7. Roll and Cut

• On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to approximately 0.5 cm thickness. Use a round biscuit cutter (about 4 cm diameter) to cut out the biscuits.

9. Bake

• Place the cut biscuits spaced evenly on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are golden and the biscuits are crisp.

9. Cool

• Remove the biscuits from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

Notes

• The butter must be cold to create the ideal crumbly texture.
• Roughly chopping olives gives pleasant bursts of flavor in each bite.
• Adjust black pepper and olives to taste for more intensity.
• These biscuits freeze well, so you can have a stash of them ready for impromptu gatherings or a cheeky snack anytime you fancy!

About this recipe

These savoury biscuits are the perfect addition to an apéro. They’re buttery, a little salty, and do exactly what good savoury crackers should do: carry a generous scoop of cervelle de canut or any spread you like, but are just as happy on their own with a glass of kir in hand. The texture is crumbly, rich, and slightly grainy from all the butter. Here, the classic French sablé base is loaded with briny black olives and sharp Parmesan, turning a simple biscuit into something you’ll want to bake in big batches and keep in the freezer, ready to pull out whenever friends drop by.

The French sablé tradition

Shortbread began it’s life in medieval kitchens, when leftover bread dough was baked a second time into a hard, long lasting biscuit. Little by little, the yeast disappeared, butter took over, and what remained was the rich, crumbly biscuit that spread across Europe. In France, bakers refined this into the sablé, playing with the ratio of butter to flour and the mixing method until they landed on that particular short, sandy texture that just holds together until it reaches your mouth.

Savoury biscuits versions have been around for centuries, especially for the apéritif, the pre‑dinner moment of drinks and small bites that the French take seriously. Cheese biscuits, herb biscuits, olive biscuits, they all show up on the apéro table, and almost all of them start from the same sablé idea: plenty of butter, just enough structure, and flavours that are bold but not heavy.

Why black olives work here

Black olives have been part of French cooking for a very long time. Greek settlers brought olives to Provence in the 4th century BC, and the local tanche variety is still grown there today, the basis for Niçoise olives and the tapenade that turns up on almost every Provençal table. The flavour is mellow and salty rather than aggressively bitter, which makes it perfect for baking into savory cheese biscuits, where the olive should support the flavour of the dough, not overwhelm it.

Matched with aged Parmesan, the pairing is straightforward and very effective. The cheese brings nutty, savoury depth that the olives alone can’t quite provide, while the natural saltiness of both means you barely need to add any extra seasoning. These are the sort of savory biscuits that more or less season themselves as they bake.

Getting the cut right

The final texture of these savoury crackers depends a lot on how evenly you cut them. If they’re too thick, they don’t crisp all the way through. Too thin, and they darken too fast while the centre dries out. A thickness of about 4–5 mm is a good target and gives you a nice snap without losing the sablé crumble.

A decent cutter makes the job easier and keeps the edges neat. I use the De Buyer round cutter set for these. The sharp edge slides cleanly through the dough instead of dragging or squashing it, and the range of sizes lets you decide whether you’re making small bites for apéro or slightly larger savory biscuits to sit alongside a cheese board.

Making them ahead

One of the best things about these cheese savoury biscuits is how well they freeze. Make a double batch, bake them, let them cool completely, then freeze them in an airtight container. They warm back up in a low oven in about 8 minutes and taste as if they’ve just been baked. If you host often, a stash of these in the freezer means you’re never more than 10 minutes away from a respectable apéro.

You can also freeze the unbaked dough. Shape it into a log, wrap it tightly, and freeze it. When you need fresh biscuits, slice the dough straight from frozen and bake, adding a minute or two to the cooking time. It’s a very handy way to get truly fresh biscuits without starting from scratch every time.

Serving them

Serve them warm if you can, that’s when the Parmesan is at its most fragrant and the texture at its best. They’re still very good at room temperature, though, and perfectly happy to sit out on the table. They work well with drinks at apéro time, tucked onto a cheese board, or simply as something to snack on when you’re a bit hungry. Kept in an airtight container, they stay good for four to five days, though in most homes, they tend to disappear much sooner.